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U.S. says Russian, not American, warplanes hit Syrian army base

The U.S. denied responsibility for an airstrike on a Syrian army post that killed three soldiers Sunday, the latest in a chaotic series of developments in the war on ISIS.

An image posted by supporters of the Islamic State on an anonymous photo-sharing website shows smoke rising in the aftermath of an airstrike that targeted areas in Raqqa, Syria. The Arabic caption on the photo says "Russian warplanes target homes of Muslims in Raqqa." (Associated Press)

By Liz SlyDan LemotheThe The Washington Post

Mon., Dec. 7, 2015

BEIRUT—The U.S. military alleged Monday that Russian warplanes were responsible for an attack on a Syrian army position in eastern Syria, an airstrike that Syria blamed on the U.S.-led coalition battling the Islamic State group in the country.

The Syrian government issued an angry statement earlier in the day accusing coalition aircraft of carrying out the overnight attack in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour.

The government said three Syrian army soldiers were killed and 13 others injured in the strike.

It was the first such allegation by Syria since the U.S.-led air campaign against the Islamic State was launched in Syria 14 months ago, and it sent tensions soaring in Syria’s crowded skies.

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The U.S.-led coalition said it’s also reviewing reports that its airstrikes against Islamic State militants Monday killed at least 36 civilians, including 20 children, in a village in eastern Syria.

The attack occurred on the mud-brick village of Al Khan in Hasakah province, which has fewer than 100 residents and is at the front line of a U.S.-backed offensive conducted by mainly Kurdish forces. It’s near the town of Al Hawl, which fell to Kurdish forces Nov. 13.

The U.S. Central Command said its aircraft had been in the area, and it was looking into the report.

A U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, later said the Pentagon is “certain” that a Russian warplane was responsible for the Deir al-Zour attack. There was no immediate response to the charge from either Syria or Russia.

The finger-pointing illustrated the danger that a misunderstanding, mistake or misinformation could trigger a wider conflict as Russia and the United States lead separate, rival air campaigns to combat the threat posed by the Islamic State.

U.S. warplanes did conduct strikes in the province of Deir al-Zour overnight Sunday, but the targets were oil wells at least 55 kilometres from Ayyash, the location the Syrian government said was hit, according to Col. Steve Warren, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad.

At the same time, the Syrian opposition charged that a separate air raid carried out by Syrian government forces struck civilians in the Sukkari neighbourhood of the northern city of Aleppo.

Syria’s Foreign Ministry called the alleged attack on the Syrian army post an act of “heinous aggression.”

It said it sent letters of complaint to the U.N. secretary general and the U.N. Security Council, urging the United Nations to take “urgent measures” to prevent a recurrence of such an incident.

“The aggression on the military post hinders the efforts aiming to fight terrorism and reiterates that the U.S.-led coalition lacks seriousness and credibility in the fight against terrorism,” the Syrian Foreign Ministry statement said.

It said four coalition warplanes struck a Syrian army post with nine rockets late Sunday, killing three soldiers and injuring 13. The strike also destroyed three armoured vehicles, four military vehicles, two heavy machine guns and a depot of arms and ammunition, the ministry added.

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he could not confirm the information provided by the Syrian government.

Most of the province of Deir al-Zour is controlled by the Islamic State, but the Syrian government has held onto a portion of the city of Deir al-Zour throughout the four-year-old war.

Russian warplanes, meanwhile, have been striking targets across Syria since late September, alongside the Syrian air force, although the U.S. military says the Russian strikes mostly target opposition rebels, not the Islamic State.

Israel also occasionally carries out strikes against Syrian military facilities to prevent the transfer of weaponry to the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah militia, and Turkey has also conducted a handful of strikes against the militants.

So busy are the skies in some parts of the country that Syrians often do not know who is bombing them.

An airstrike that killed 15 civilians over the weekend in Raqqa, the north-central Syrian city where the Islamic State is headquartered, was attributed to the U.S.-led coalition by the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

But another activist group, Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, said the strike was carried out by Russian warplanes.

“It’s very confusing and hard to know” which airstrike is being carried out by which country “with all [these] warplanes and airstrikes above our heads,” the group said on its Twitter account.

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